


Profits From Unexpected Ventures

by Vietta



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Humor, set after the original game and before Advent Children, set before the story Smokes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-02
Updated: 2017-04-02
Packaged: 2018-10-13 22:23:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10523118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vietta/pseuds/Vietta
Summary: Rufus realizes the advantage that can be taken of a world brought to it's knees by apocalypse and disease.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Please forgive me for (and notify me of) and errors you find in this fic. I wrote it around midnight because the inspiration struck and kept me from sleep.

Healin Lodge is a marked decline in quality compared to his old penthouse. Hell, it’s even less accommodating than the dreary seeming apartment-turned-prison-cell in Junon had been. Meals he once would have had cooked by a live-in chef are now cooked by his Turks or pre-purchased. He eats his freezer food, downs his pills with tap water, and does his best not to bitch about trivial inconveniences. Stigma-stained sheets and clothing force him to learn how to do laundry on his own. He reuses his towels and conserves water like the rest of them. He learns how to scrub dishes by hand and works at not being a burden. 

He has lost many things since Meteorfall. His home, the full function of his right leg, and recently- thanks to Geostigma- most of the vision in his now piebald left eye. He does his best to forge onward through the loss and physical pain, but the mounting pile of things he had taken for granted it wearing his temper thin.

The loss of good booze and cigars is taken in stride where the loss of good coffee hits below the belt.

This final injustice, however, is not a loss he is going to abide.

Cane thumping loudly against the wooden floor to grab his Turk’s attention, he holds his last straw aloft, “What in Gaia’s name is this?”

Reno and Rude, the only Turks currently available to answer his question, turn in unison to face him. An ashtray sits between them, a mostly spent butt still pinched in Reno’s fingers. Rude is repairing an EMR, likely Reno’s, on the scuffed surface of the kitchen table. Catching sight of the item in question, Reno looks at Rufus like he may be a few cards short of a full deck. Rude turns whiskey brown eyes to Reno, hoping for clarification- as if what he is seeing is somehow not reality if Reno isn’t also seeing it.

A thin red eyebrow arches high and Reno speaks to Rufus slowly, like he is a child or a mental patient in need of delicate and careful handling. “That would be shit paper, boss.”

“This is the most godsawful-”

“It’s all we could scrounge up, Rufus.” The barely burning remains of a cigarette get pressed between thin lips, blue eyes still focused on Rufus. “Wanna use your fancy socks instead?”

Blinking, still foolishly holding a roll of toilet paper before him in one hand and leaning heavily on his cane with the other, Rufus feels his own eyebrows raise. “What do you mean ‘scrounge up’? There was no other brand available?”

“I mean it’s all that’s damn left, man!” Reno frowns slightly, shakes fingers burnt from trying to smoke a cigarette filter, “When the world burns down, what do you think happens to paper, bossman?”

As Rude turns his attention back to the dented EMR in his hands and Reno looks miserably at an empty pack of cigarettes, Rufus is struck dumb. Eventually, his Turk’s still darting glances at him in curious concern, he leaves the room to return the off-color paper to his bathroom. The gears in his brain are turning furiously as he goes,, his cane thumping hard against the floor as he leans more and more heavily upon it. 

He’s been barred from rebuilding his power company; the world no longer wants him to provide its citizens with electricity. Shuttered from the only business he’s truly ever known, he has floundered somewhat; struck with the need to prove his desire to atone and frustrated by the limited ways he can do it. Throwing money at the WRO is something, but it’s far from lucrative and his coffers will run dry before the world thinks his apology sufficient. 

The thin excuse for toilet-paper still in his hand, he realizes that there are other needs he could fill, needs others have not yet recognized. 

It takes him two days to secure a factory near Kalm to work from and three weeks more to outfit it with the necessary equipment and employees to set his plan in motion. Only Tseng gets told of his intent to produce the most basic of household goods because only Tseng will comprehend his true intentions. The others can know when his venture proves lucrative.

And when he can trust himself not to be offended by the inevitable jokes that come when rebuilding an empire on the profits of shit paper and assorted toiletries.


End file.
